Pregnancy & Meditation

Taking a walk around the Jardin des Plantes with my fellow preggo, Laura, and hatching plans about the many Musées, Parcs & Galleries we are going to visit with our babes soon! Shout out to Laura who gave birth to her beautiful baby boy a few days after this photo was taken, and is now enjoying the MEGA loved up babymoon phase! Congratulations Laura on becoming a Mamma x

Dear Diary.

So you may have noticed that I’ve been a bit lax on the old blogging front recently.

And that’s mainly because I’ve been so busy actually doing things around Paris & I haven’t felt much like sitting down & tap tapping on my computer.

But, whilst I’ve not been keeping up to speed on my official blog here, I have been posting lots of little snippits of things me & my bump have been getting up to around Paris (and other parts of France) over on my Doula Paris instagram & facebook pages.

I’ve also been scribbling away in my diary, keeping track of all the interesting changes, feelings and emotions that have been going on throughout my pregnancy. And I’m looking forward to turning all of this material into proper blog topics on here soon!

Since I started my maternity leave recently I’ve felt a strong drawing inwards towards really taking care of myself & completely experiencing the fullness of this magical journey. So I’ve been taking lots of time for meditation, reflection, self-care & nuturing. I feel so strongly that this is such a unique and precious time in my life that I want to know all of it deeply and fully, and to take as much time as I can to pay attention to the many changes that are going on in my body and my mind.

So here’s some of the stuff that I’ve been doing recently around Paris that’s played an important part in my preggo journey so far :

Pregnancy Massage & ‘mothering the mother’

Me having a Ayurveda pregnancy massage at Marissa Bai's place in Nation.

Despite my regular yoga-meditation practice, which helps me to dig deep & find my own source of strength & peace, there are definitely times when I feel too knackered for anything, and I just want to hand myself over to someone else, to nourish and take care of me for a few hours.

For this, Marissa Bai is my ultimate massage Mamma. Her ayurveda pregnancy massages are deeply nourishing & insainly relaxing, and each time I go to her I feel like I can fully let go and be taken care of.

Since the beginning of pregnancy, I’ve felt a strong sense of wanting to be taken care of, and I guess it’s what we refer to as ‘mothering the mother ;’ that mums need to be looked after too, so that they can take good care of their babes.

So once a week I waddle along to Marissa’s house near Nation, where she smothers me in soothing sesame oil, for the best part of 2 hours…and something magical always happens. I feel like it depends on what my body needs week to week, but these moments seem to somehow open up the space that I need to listen to what my body is calling for. Often it’s moments of connection with the little guy romping around in my tum, but other times I enter deep & powerful visualisations of birth & motherhood. Above all it’s my once a week reminder to say thank you to my body for the GOD DAMN INCREDIBLE job it’s pulling-off in carrying, growing, and sustaining this little human inside of me. Like seriously, WOW.

Being in water has always been one of my deepest pleasures. I find it so soothing and meditative and I am definitely 100% water baby : my mum apparently chucked me into the swimming pool pretty much as soon as I shot out of the womb, and throughout my childhood I can remember sitting at the bottom of the shower basin all morning until somebody noticed and came in and dragged me out.

So naturally, as soon as I got pregnant I got googling on anything and everything water-based in Paris, and it turns out there’s rather a lot!

Luckily, I live right next to the Maurice Thorez swimming pool - which is a bit of a Hipster scenester swimming pool as they recently shot the very cool Indie-film « L’effet Aquatique » there.

My baby-daddy & I also go to the Saturday morning prenatal swimming class together there, which is run by RSCM swimming club but you’ll find that there are various different public pools around Paris that do similar prenatal classes for couples, if you get googling. I had to put myself on a waiting list quite far in advance for this one, so best to get signed up pretty much as soon as you see that positive line appear….

The urban spa ‘L’echappé’ also does a great aqua pilates class in their thermal pool twice weekly & although this class is not strictly for pregnant women, the instructor Margot is also a prenatal pilates teacher so she is pretty savvy about what to avoid when pregnant. It’s a beautiful spa with beautiful surroundings and it feels sooooo good to step into the warm pool & stretch, while the water takes off the excess load of a heavy baby bump. Bliss.

It’s always a bit wierd plonking yourself down and sitting zazen in public places, but conveniently I live a short cycle-ride away from the bois de Vincennes, which is a huge green space that’s big enough to find a little spot where nobody seems to care about the pregnanct wierdo sat under the tree meditating.

Also, the more I do it, the more I don’t really give a shit about whose watching. It’s been a natural part of my journey into motherhood realising that it’s important to turn off from what other people might say or think, and to do what my intuititon is telling me is right or good for me & my baby. So I may look like a bit of a nutcase, but I know this zen time is sould food for me & my babe…so, whatevs Parisians, trot on.

And there’s something uniquely perfect about meditating in the midst of the gentle hubub of the park….tuning into the comings and goings of the sounds of birds chattering, passing pushchairs and joggers, and the gentle whistle of the trees blowing in the wind.

My meditation practice has played such an important role in my journeying inwards during pregnancy ; it’s incredible how quickly any anxieties or troubles I have can simply dissolve into the ether after a few minutes of meditation. It brings me back to a place of deep trust, peace and gratitude for things as they are ; a natural confidence in the flow of life. When I’m stuck in the busybusy-ness of my rational mind day-to-day, I can easily slip into obsessing or worrying about little things, or wanting to ‘control’ certain aspects of my pregnancy, which I know deep down are completely out of my control. (as I have so often said over on my Birth blog, pregnancy & birth are ultimately unknowable and uncontrollable).

Meditatation provides me with this space, trust, and deeper faith in the inevitable flow of things which brings great release and freedom, and allows me to appreciate things as they are, and thus enjoy the day to day miniture miracles of my pregnancy more intimately. I honestly don’t know how anyone lives without it !

Prenatal Yoga

Sharon Bales' prenatal yoga class at Caelo Yoga

I really enjoyed teaching my weekly prenatal yoga classes during the first 6 months of pregnancy, and although it was tiring to teach, it was a welcome motivation for me to keep going with my own practice right from the first month of pregnancy. I also enjoyed the weekly exchanges with other pregnant women about the many changes they were experiencing week-to-week, at the different points on their journey. I always begin my classes checking-in with how everyone’s feeling ; it’s a way for women to gain perspective & solidarity on what stages we’ve left behind and what changes are still to come. Women coming together to share and speak freely on their mutual joys & struggles is something I’ve always found to be significant, and it’s one of my fave bits about teaching group classes.

By the end of my 6th month, however, I was definitely ready to sign-out of supporting other women and start to refocus my energy on myself. It was a pretty intuitive feeling that spoke up and said, « time to look after yourself & your little one now Jode, » and I feel incredibly grateful to have the kind of job which allows me to listen & respond to what my intuition is telling me, to retreat when I need to.

Since stopping teaching, I usually get into my own yoga practice at home, but I occasionally feel like changing environment and joining the energy of a group class, it also invites me to try out some new ‘moves’ that I don’t necessarily do in my own practise.

When I do go to a group class it’s often with Sharon Bales or Brigitte Rietzler , who are both beautiful prenatal yoga teachers and very much in line with my own practice of gentle, safe, and connected movement during pregancy, as opposed to the more mechanical, disconnected classes that you can get from teachers who aren’t fully integrated in the physical and emotional needs of pregnant women.

If you are looking for a pregnancy yoga class then I highly recommend both of these 2 top notch teachers.

Ive also been going to a pregnancy class at the Iyenga yoga institute in Paris – but that one is not for the faint hearted and more suitable for those who have a regular Iyenga practice before pregnancy.

Prenatal Yoga is such a glorious way to connect with your body and your baby, and I recommend it to absolutely everyone! It’s really not necessary to have done yoga before and many women take their first yoga class during pregnancy. Pregnancy is the perfect opportunity to try out some stuff and it’s often a time when women realise they need to slow-down and start taking better care of themselves. So enjoy ! And make the most of it…

Hypnobirthing

I officially taught my last Hypnobirthing class last week & am now taking a break from teaching for a while. However my monthly Doula Paris classes are still up-and-running during my maternity leave, as they will be covered by a replacement teacher who has very carefully been hand-selected & mentored by me, so that I can assure that my students will be in very good hands in her classes!

I’ve been teaching hypnobirthing for a while now, and it’s been interesting to discover on a personal level just how useful and effective a tool it is during pregnancy & birth preparation.

I had a pretty rough early pregnancy, but when I was feeling super zonked-out, lacking energy & pretty low, all I had to do was reach over and click on a hypnobirthing mp3 to get a good dose of positivity. I especially rememeber certain hypnobirthing affirmations really carried me through the grotty bits of the first trimester.

In the second trimester my boyfriend actually joined in on one of my group courses that I was teaching, which was both cool & totally hilarous, and he now dutifully reads me some of the hypnobirthing scripts before we go to bed. I feel like it’s helping us both to get our minds in a positive and calm place for welcoming our baby into the world, and it’s also a nice moment to share together at the end of the day ; it’s made me realise that essentially, hypnobirthing has become the bedtime stories for 30-somethings awaiting their first child! And it often leads to one of us getting the giggles at some point, as certain words in the hypnobirthing scripts read with a thick french accent, are just well, wildly comical.

In my own personal practice I now very rarely stick to the birth-breathing or affirmation practices that are taught as standard during the hypnobirthing course, but having the background in hypnobirthing ‘theory’ as it were, has definitely framed and informed the visualisation & affirmations that I experiment with now myself. This is one of the great benefits of the hypnobirthing course ; it gives you a background and understanding of the kind of visualisations and breathing techniques which are useful for birth, which you can then go away and adapt and make more personal to you, if you wish.

What I imagined pregnancy was going to look/feel like.... Natalie Portman in her nudey preggo pics for James Blake's new music video.

Me at my 22 weeks scan: It's a boy!!!

Getting over the first trimester hump

Well, the evolution of pregnancy is a thing to behold!

I spent the first trimester feeling completely dizzy with nausea and all over, top-to-toe, YAK. If you’d told me I had a terminal illness, I definitely would have believed you, I possibly would have felt relieved. Every cell in my body felt as though it had been invaded with grottiness….and I was just waiting, and hoping, for that bit where I’m supposed to start feel gorgeous & glowing?

Well, it’s here, finally. It’s called the second trimester, and apparently it’s pretty standard to start getting some of your « va va voom » back around the 4th/5th month, as your hormone levels simmer down a bit and everything starts to feel a bit more smooth cruising.

When I was working in antenatal clinic as a student Midwife I remember there was this stock phrase we gave in attempt to reassure newly preggos that « things get better in the 2nd trimester » and these common symptoms of early pregnancy do subside, « eat dry crackers, little and often, yadda yadda… » but by lord was that an understatement !!

I had this illusionary number of 16 weeks, the magical 16 weeks, nested in my head as the moment when I would finally clamber back to a state of normality and start to look and feel something like Natalie Portman does in those nudey preggo photos that came out recently.

But 16 weeks came and went, and my « va va voom » did not appear to be remarkably altered, and so I began to despair that I was going to spend the whole of my pregnancy feeling completely grot.

Low and behold, at exactly 19 weeks and 3 days, something shifted and I felt like the woman I once was, as though I had awoken from some sort of deep and deranged coma.

The second trimester : things can only get better

As a wise man named D:Rream (definitely his real name) once said at the height of 90’s pop music « Things…can ONLY get better. » I’m not sure he was referring to the evolution of the trimesters of pregnancy, or the steady decline of HCG levels, but back there in the first trimester I definitely couldn’t see the wood for the trees. It was DARK.

We attribute a wild array of our womanly follies and frolics to our little friends « the hormones », but I reckon that part of feeling SO much more jolly in the second trimester is quite simply due to the sheer relief and gratitude that you no longer feel constantly crap. And the elation that ‘normal’ daily tasks - such as being able to stand up vertical for more than 5 minutes without feeling nauseous - may once again be within reach.

Now at 22 weeks, I don’t just feel better, I feel better than better. If I had to put my finger on it I’d say it feels a bit like that Oestrogeny-high part of your menstrual cycle where you feel all light, sexy and full of energy & zing.

Added to that, I’ve now started to properly feel this little hamster grooving around in my tum, it’s all started to feel much more good and holy. Sort of what I expected it ‘should’ feel like when I got pregnant.

The overriding feeling now is absolute awe and wonder at the fact that my body can manufacture an entire human baby, and that he’s just chilling out in there - all the time! Or as one of the mums who recently did hypnobirthing and prenatal yoga classes with me put it « It’s like I’m never alone any more…she’s always there, like we’re constantly hanging out, just me and my home girl! » (Heads up to her btw, Paris-based, American-born comedian Sarah Donnelly, who is WILD funny and you can catch her on the english-speaking comedy circuit around Paris).

It’s a bloody miracle when you think about it. And if I’m entirely honest with you, there’s also just a little, added element of smugness that comes from that feeling of ‘I’m all woman…and I can grow a whole baby…what can you do boys ??? » It almost makes the last 10 years of menstrual bleeding, mood swings & overall womanly traumas feel like they may have been worth it ! « Dear womb, thank you, I knew you’d come good for something, one day. »

The changing seasons…what’s next ?

As I am all too aware from these many years of menstrual cycling - however- it is exactly just that, a cycle, and I am starting to fully appreciate that pregnancy too has its own natural rythms and ‘seasons’. Spring, alas, cannot last forever and if there is one thing for sure : winter will come again…

What I am experiencing now must undoubtedly be pregnancy Spring (if there is a Summer too then I am like SO up for that) but no doubt pregnancy Autumn will be another thing entirely, with its own colours, textures and moods.

I’m in the rather privileged position of being constantly surrounded by other pregnant women, which helps me to gain a bit of overall perpective on these seasons…and so I’ve noticed that there is an equally tangible shift in the third trimester (around 28 weeks -ish) where women tend to dwindle again in their energy levels, and begin an important nesting, homing phase, which if you don’t manage to ground and flow with may lead to the anxiety of grappling to hold on to summer…

The only thing that’s inevitable is change, OR « don’t get used to anything »

Earlier this month I went back to the UK for my annual Midwife Mandatory training, and my Labour Ward manager asked me « how it was all going so far ? » I told her it had been tougher than I’d expected thus far, and that it was a daily learning curve !!!!

« Don’t get used to anything in pregnancy, because it will only change again» she told me, and I think this has probably been the most sensical thing that anyone has said to me in my pregnancy journey thus far. It resonated perfectly at the time, and I’ve been repeating it to my prenatal yoga 'students’ ever since …

Old Heraclitus of Ephesus figured this out back in 500 BC when he said “the only constant is change,” but somehow we still seem to be grappling with this idea in the Y2K's.

If anything, the modern world perpetuates our illusion that we are able to control everything and anything. And it’s always seemed to me that this causes huge obstacles when it comes to pregnancy - and especially birth - because they are both entirely unknowable and uncontrollable.

I’ve therefore come to the conclusion that getting used to this fact that we cannot really control or predict anything - that a constant state of flux is inevitable - is probably a useful and necessary stage in preparing and re-setting our modern, control-freak, mindsets for labour, birth and early parenthood.

Every woman is different : it's the law!!!

As one of the browny guide laws of Midwifery school goes : every woman is unique and different, every pregnancy is different, and every little cookie that she grows inside her baby-box will bring it’s own unique journey.

I realise that I have made some wild and sweeping generalisations here about the changing moods and modes within trimesters, however a season is exactly what it suggests : Seasonal. Just as you can have transient heat waves in Spring and freak Indian summers, there will always be wobbly days and weeks within each trimester…but personally, I feel it’s useful to remember that these ebbs and flows of nature are mirrored in our bodies and minds, and they are, well – normal and natural.

As I’ve now personally now felt the full extent of that overwhelming anxiety that comes from the feeling that Winter will never end, I’ll be taking every opportunity I can to remind and reassure any « first Trimies » that cross my path, that Spring indeed will come again. And of course, pumping out a bit of D:Ream on the stereo….

This pic marks the end of my month of daily meditation and today I also officially move my life to Paris!!!

Me, Herbette the plant, and all of my worldly belongings are about to hop on the ferry and make our move across the channel!

One last meditation in the van before we board!

The last 30 days have been incredible and my daily meditations have had a remarkable impact on my motivation and mood! It has now become well and truly ingrained in my daily routine. And having committed to doing it for a whole month has really made me realise that it is totally possible to fit in at least 5 minutes every day, to touch base.

Thanks everyone for reading / following / sharing and especially to those who have got involved too!

I've been amazed by the amount of people who have contacted me about the blog and all the encouragement and support I have received, both from friends and people who I have never even met before on Instagram, twitter etc...

It's great to know that it has had a positive impact on others as well as me!

Today I met with my lovely friend Verity, who is now 36 weeks pregnant, for some Green Tea, Preggo chat, and hypnobirthing practice. Verity and I met earlier this year when we did Ayala Gill's wonderful mindfulness courses together at Triyoga.

Verity was always smiley and open during classes and our friendship was sealed one day when we got uncontrollable fits of giggles during one of the mindfulness exercises, and set the entire class off laughing. Had we been at school together we would most definitely have got into some serious mischief.

This afternoon we had a lovely catch-up and then I gave Verity and her little Lemon their first hypnobirthing class!

We focussed mainly on breathing techniques and visualisations for labour and birth, as well as discussing the use of pelvic floor exercises before and after birth. This involved a lot of comedy pointing to our nether regions... And there was plenty of time for chatter and giggles in-between!

Apparently Verity has recently invested in an 'Adult Colouring Book' as colouring in aids relaxation, which I find totally hilarious, but I can definitely see how that could work!

Since she’s getting all Art Attack/Women's Institute at the mo then this week’s homework for her is to start scribbling some positive birth affirmations on fancy coloured paper and dotting them around her house. Eg:

-I see my baby’s birth as natural, healthy, swift and easy.

-My baby is born gently, calmly, and healthily

-With each surge my breath is slow and deep.

-My body is relaxed and my mind is calm.

Hopefully Verity will send us some photos of these various masterpieces, dotted around her gaff, soon!

It was an absolute pleasure to teach Verity today as she is just so joyful and gorgeous, and totally hilarious! Laughter is such a great tool for relaxation and I know she is going to have an a lovely, positive birth!

Thanks too to Triyoga Camden for the use of their peaceful meditiation room! Total Bliss!

As my month of meditation draws to a close, tonight I did a wonderful mindfulness meditation outside of my flat in Homerton.

I love this photo as it captures the spirit of being able to find peace and tranquility ANYWHERE. Even in the madness that is a Homerton high rise. Or, as my housemate Holly put it:

“You don’t have to be in a glamorous place, or have some amazing ambiance to be able to meditate.”

It's funny, as even after all of the beautiful places I have visited and meditated this month, from stunning Cascades to incredible eco-hotels in the middle of the Canadian Massifs, I still feel most at peace by sitting in my own back yard in Hackney.

I guess, after a while, you can learn to call anywhere home! My neighbours here are nothing short of hilarious, so they definitely deserve a shout-out at this point:

At number 4 we have 'Mickey and the boys' who regularly pump iron topless in the front garden. There are frequent gatherings of alpha males lurking outside our front porch. All of them drive vans, and they are extremely friendly SOLID chaps. We even received a neighbourly festive christmas card signed - I kid you not - "Mickey and the Boys."

At number 6 we have Lisa and friends, who inhibit what is essentially a 24/7 rave den. The relentless Radio 1 dance hits started the Saturday night that I moved in, over a year ago, and have rarely eased off since then. At the tender age of 40 Lisa is Hackneys No. 1 vintage party queen. After several complaints to hackney council noise pollution I decided that living my life to the background soundtrack of Annie Mac and Pete Tong was my inevitable destiny. So I swallowed it and submitted to the Zen...If Lisa is the Hackney's number 1 raver, I am now the leading global expert on meditating/sleeping over full blast house music.

During the making of this photo a hooded teenage boy made a brief visit to chez Lisa, for what we can only assume was to "pick up." Holly tried her damndest to capture him on camera but he was too sprightly! The fella who was chased by police from her flat a few weeks ago was equally nippy….

Anyway!! Back to the meditation blog:

Tonight was a bit of a monster meditation session! I did 15 minutes meditation of my own meditation and then I listened to the "Cultivating a full heart" mindfulness MP3 recorded by my mindfulness/yoga teacher Ayala Gill.

This is one of my favourite mindfulness meditations, where you cultivate a warm and nourishing sense of love, calm and safety in your heart. Being able to generate a felt sense simply by using visualisation is such a wonderful gift. It's really incredible to feel such a strong sensation in your body that you have created entirely from your own thoughts!

I looked after a lovely couple who were hypnobirthing during labour - it is always such a pleasure to see hypnobirthing in action! And the woman's partner was so supportive with his wife's hypnobirthing techniques! I was mega impressed! He had the whole "long breaths, relaxed jaw," "feeling grounded, feeling relaxed" patter down to a T!

I have been doing my daily meditations for almost a month now! And I have really noticed a big change in my mood and motivation since doing them! Having committed to a whole month of daily meditations, as well as the daily pictures, has really kept me inspired and motivated.

I've also been AMAZED by the amount of people who've started conversations with me about my practice, as a result of the #altbeautyblog, and/or have expressed an interest to start meditation/mindfulness!

I've had tonnes of emails, support and ideas/inspiration from friends and also lots of people wanting tips on how to get started! Last night I even had one of the Band 7 midwives (senior Midwives in charge) asking me about how to get started with meditation and how it can help with relaxation, and calming a busy mind! Some of the other midwives also added meditation apps to their phone as a result of overhearing this conversation!

Good news travels fast! I'm so glad that my daily meditations are having a ripple effect! I've really enjoyed doing them and am even more glad that it's having a positive effect on others as well as me!

It was actually a really peaceful and calm night and it was just what I need after a long, busy shift so I'm really grateful to Holly for her inspiration.

Holly finished medical school 5 years ago and is now in her final year of training as a GP. She recently did an 8-week mindfulness course especially designed for medics, with Dr Katie Amiel, who is a GP in Hackney.

I would very much recommend mindfulness techniques to any health professionals as a source of self-care, and to calm and focus the mind in the midst of busy, stressful shifts.

Simply google mindfulness courses for Doctors and you will find plenty! Enjoy!